Sullivan at bottom of county health rankings

MONTICELLO – Sullivan again achieved the second-worst overall ranking among New York’s 62 counties in an annual report that looks at the overall health of states and their counties.

Only Bronx County fared worst than Sullivan, according to the report distributed by the Princeton, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and produced by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute.

The overall ranking is based on a number of individual indicators, ranging from premature deaths and smoking to high-school graduation and poverty rates

Sullivan ranked worse in premature deaths, which measures the years of potential life loss for people who died before reaching 75.

“Poverty leads to poor health for a variety of reasons,” Public Health Director Carol Ryan told the Legislature on Thursday. “We’re a poor county and our health outcomes are poor.”